


apple of my eye

by trilobites



Series: HQ!! Rare Pairs 2020 [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Boundaries, Conversations, Emotional Constipation, Food, HQ Rarepair Week, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Sneaking Around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23957890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trilobites/pseuds/trilobites
Summary: Miya Osamu, a top-billing actor, once more dips into the deep well of patience of his agent, Aran-kun. There's milk tea involved.
Relationships: Miya Osamu/Ojiro Aran
Series: HQ!! Rare Pairs 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1724674
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	apple of my eye

**Author's Note:**

> For the Haikyuu Rare Pair Week 2020 Day 3 Prompt - Celebrity!AU

It started with a balance sheet and Osamu’s wandering eyes. He hadn’t meant to snoop, but it had happened anyway. Aran’s office had been empty even though Osamu had made sure to be five minutes early to their meeting. He hadn’t been able to hold in his curiosity upon seeing the documents sitting in a neat pile on top of Aran’s desk. Aran had a habit of holding onto proposals and scripts until he’d vetted them. Triple checked, even. Osamu thought it was a tiring way to live, but he guessed that was why he wasn’t an agent.

Right. The agency. The balance sheet. All Osamu had been looking for was some sneak peeks, but he happened upon a balance sheet detailing savings. For a car? A house? How responsible of Aran-kun. It had only taken a moment to realize that it wasn’t for such a small purchase. No, it was a 5 year plan for a new entertainment agency—Aran’s own entertainment agency, not Fox Skulk Entertainment. Osamu should have put it back, but he hadn’t. Then the stupid swinging door opened, and in came Aran.

“Sorry, Osamu, I got tied up in a meeting. Were you waiting long?”

Osamu looked up, and he could acknowledge that for once, he probably did look as stupid as his brother always told him he did. His mouth hung open, and his brain was filled with fuzz. Meanwhile Aran was smiling at him, the wide, unsuspecting one that brought out the cute roundness in his eyes. Osamu was probably a horrible person.

“What’s with that? Aren’t you going to say hello?” Aran asked.

Osamu had held up the balance sheet, the 5 year plan, and his fate. “I looked at this,” he said. His Kansai dialect suddenly came out strong, like it did whenever he was in a tough spot.

Aran’s smile had faded, and hell had broken loose at Fox Skulk Entertainment that afternoon.

* * *

Osamu Miya was twenty-six years old. He’d started out in the entertainment industry as a drama actor, until he’d slowly phased into film acting. His first role had been in a music video for a now defunct idol group, whose one hit wonder had catapulted his name and face onto millions of screens across Japan. He died a little inside every time clips from the video were played at his fan meetings—his hair had been fucking ashen grey-brown—but he still had to resist the urge to grimace in the face of his delighted fans. Plenty of critics panned his acting, calling him a one-trick pony, but if you asked him, he was good enough to compare to the likes of those Oscar nominees in Hollywood. He had been convincing when he thanked his fans for “loving my debut video after all these years,” hadn’t he?

For the entire duration of his career, Osamu had been represented by Fox Skulk Entertainment. Even though Aran was his agent, he’d actually joined the company after Osamu.

“I think that makes me your senior, Aran-kun,” he liked to say.

“Even though I was your senior in high school. Also, it’s ‘Aran-san,’” Aran liked to remind him.

Truth be told, Ojiro Aran was a little pedantic. Osamu had never seen him pass up an opportunity to supply a comeback to a joke or correct people when they said something he thought was stupid. He used to think it was troublesome back in high school, when Aran had taken to making comebacks to each and every one of Osamu and his brother’s antics. Then at some point it had stopped being troublesome and instead became endearing. These days, it was more like a cute quirk that made Osamu feel like smiling. Troublesome.

Maybe that was why he was standing in the lobby at Fox Skulk, armed with a box of flavored Ritz crackers and a tray of milk tea. He kept his sunglasses on, lest anyone think he was amenable to conversation and start asking him if he was here to see Aran. He was, but if he talked to anyone on the way, surely he would lose his nerve and swerve out of there.

Osamu stared up at the opaque glass door of Aran’s office and braced himself for what followed. He lifted his hand to knock, and was surprised when the door opened. In the threshold stood Aran, whose eyes widened upon seeing Osamu. Osamu didn’t say anything. He would follow Aran’s lead. That was absolutely the way to go.

“You’re wearing sunglasses.”

“It’s sunny out.”

“Osamu, we’re indoors. Also, what are you holding? Is that shrimp flavor Ritz?” Then he sighed and ran a hand down his face. “No. You know what? We’re not talking here.”

“We’re not talking here,” Osamu agreed.

Aran narrowed his eyes at him, before he went back in to gather his keys and wallet. He locked the office door significantly behind them and walked off without waiting to see if Osamu was going to follow. Was he supposed to carry this milk tea with him? His wrist was starting to ache.

They walked back out through the lobby. Osamu kept his sunglasses on. To outsiders, it would look like a lunch appointment. He watched miserably as Aran greeted the reception staff and his colleagues passing by with all the cordiality in the world.

“Where’re we goin’?” he asked, once they left the vicinity of the agency building. He’d worked hard to pick up the standard dialect, but when he and Aran were alone, they both fell into old habits. “Hey, Aran-san. Are you listenin’?”

Aran stopped suddenly. He shielded his eyes and turned around to face Osamu. It had been a week since Osamu had last seen him. He took in the details that he’d missed in that time: a brown sports jacket worn over his golden crewneck, the clean line of his fade. People at Fox Skulk liked to rib Osamu that people would mistake Aran for the actor and Osamu for the agent. Osamu understood why.

“What’re you tryin’ to do?” Aran asked.

Osamu blinked slowly. “Uh, give these to you. But if you don’t want ‘em, I’ll just take ‘em back.”

Aran’s brow furrowed deeper. Which meant Osamu was fucking up. Great.

“Do you ever take things seriously?”

At that, Osamu actually ripped off his sunglasses. “What the fuck? I fuckin’ came here to make up with you, and you wanna know if I’m takin’ things seriously?”

“And you really thought snacks would be a good way to make up.”

“Well, shit, I’ll apologize before I give it to you, then!” Osamu didn’t get why the order mattered, but fine. He could deal with this much. “I’m sorry I was diggin’ through your things. I won’t do it again.”

Instead of smiling and giving Osamu his forgiveness, Aran only sighed deeply. He took one of the cups of milk tea and poked a straw in through the plastic on the top. One, two, three tapioca pearls into his mouth. Osamu watched him chew, then swallow, then say nothing.

Finally, he opened his mouth: “I didn’t mean that you should apologize. That’s not even really what I wanted.”

“Huh? You lost me.”

“I was embarrassed,” Aran murmured.

“Huh?”

“Osamu, I know you’re self-conscious ’n all about the ratings on your movies—”

“Uh, as if.”

Aran ignored him and pressed on. “But sometimes it’s hard to tell if you really care about this business at all. Kinda seems like you could have done somethin’ else and been just as happy. And that’s okay, ‘cause you’re you. But that’s not how it is for me. I wanna do more, even if I know it’s a pipe dream. So I got embarrassed when I saw you starin’ at the plan so hard.”

“Oh.” Osamu thought about the blush on Aran’s face and how he’d snatched away the stack of papers like they were slices of A5 beef. He’d assumed all this time that it was because the plans were a secret, but if they had been a secret, there was no way Aran would have left the papers on his desk like that. He stared at his feet. People told him often that he was difficult to read, but Aran always seemed to know what he was thinking. It was just unfair that he misread Osamu about all the wrong things.

“It’s true: I guess I wouldn’t really care if I ended up doin’ something else. But I wouldn’t belittle your dreams.” He looked up at Aran properly this time. “Sorry anyway, that I looked through your stuff.”

Aran smiled at him. It was broad and warm, the one that Osamu had wanted earlier. His good graces were implicit, but he still took the box of apology Ritz crackers from Osamu.

“It’s okay. Let’s go get lunch now, yeah? What do you wanna eat? I’ll treat ya.”

That should have been that, but Osamu was still dissatisfied. Who else had Aran told about his plans? Maybe he just hadn’t mentioned it to Osamu because he was trying really hard to be professional. Or maybe it was because he thought Osamu just didn’t care. Osamu did, though, damn it. He watched Aran walking ahead, noticed the broad expanse of his back and how different it looked from the days when they’d worn the same school uniform.

“Um, Aran.”

Aran turned around, back towards him. “What is it? D’you gotta go somewhere?”

Osamu shook his head. “It’s cool,” he said, wondering whether Aran could even hear him in the din on the busy sidewalk or the gust of wind that passed through the avenue. “Your dreams are, I mean. When you make ‘em happen, I’ll join your agency. I’ll be the first actor to join. So treat me good, okay?”

Osamu’s ears went warm. He was an actor; standing in the street and making declarations was a part of his job. But all of that had been playacting, whereas this was very real. He searched for cues in the surprised expression on Aran’s face. This was probably really uncool. Osamu’s nose itched.

“Thanks,” Aran said, softer than he’d ever been with Osamu. “It means a lot that you’d say that.”

Osamu averted his gaze. His entire face was hot now, too. He’d definitely hit his limit for the day. “Sure,” he managed to say.

This seemed to satisfy Aran well enough. He didn’t press Osamu for anything further before asking, “So you wanna try out this new curry place that opened?”

“I have to diet, y’know.”

“Then you can watch me eat. Or order a salad before you eat my entire plate of curry.”

Osamu rolled his eyes. That was one time. “Maybe I’ll order a soup instead.”

And because Aran was Aran, he couldn’t not follow up with something to that. Osamu walked beside him and traded barbs as they neared the curry restaurant. The sun was warm even if the air was nippy, and his shoulder bumped steadily into Aran’s. In the crook of Aran’s arm was the box of shrimp-flavored Ritz.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm behind. I will persevere. Thank you for watching my struggles. I hope that you will come away from this loving Aran and Osamu.
> 
> This AU is way too developed in my mind. Osamu is at the same agency as Sakusa, whose original entertainment agency (Mustela Talents) was bought out by Fox Skulk. Hinata is a stunt double. Atsumu is the host and producer of a public broadcast series about nature and animals aimed at child audiences. It is debatable whether his fanbase is largely made up of children or not.


End file.
